Warren Harding

The big thing is the firm establishment of the Court and our cordial adherence thereto. All else is mere detail.

We avoided controversy and recorded accomplishment.

In the gloom and grief of the world, the Conference table lighted the torch of understanding and pointed the simplest way to peace.

If the plain and very simple path of progress in dealing with these controversies which all countries recognize to be susceptible to settlement through judicial tribunals is not to be followed, then hope lies dead and no progress is…

If our people are ever to decide upon war, they will choose to decide according to our own national conscience at the time and in the constitutional manner without advance commitment, or the advice or consent of any other Power.

Our own concern is not with the beginning. Our interest is in the end to be attained.

It is a pity we have the mischief makers who are ever adding to the burdens of distrust, but we do have them and in 1921 they were busy in our land and in the East, exciting suspicion and ill feeling.

I have thus far made no allusion to the hungering of humanity for new assurances that the world may be equally blessed. Peace ought to be the supreme blessing to all mankind.

Settlement may enforce hardships and denials and economies which hinder the easy way to restoration, but it maintains the foundations of financial honor which must be everlasting.

The world was weary of war burdens and armament cost, and an honest and authoritative confession would reveal that fact so that men might act in concert to relieve the situation and make for widespread amity.

The friendly relationship and the soul of national honor are infinitely more important to peace than a written form of their expression.

I do not know that such a court will be unfailing in the avoidance of war, but I know it is a step in the right direction and will prove an advance toward international peace for which the reflective conscience of mankind is calling.

Public order has been so improved in the interior that our marines have been practically withdrawn therefrom, and the day is in prospect when our complete withdrawal from the island may be contemplated.

History has yet to record another like expression of trust by one nation in the fairness of another.

How else may controversies between nations be determined? Is a controversy to be left a festering sore? If it is, then there is ever increasing danger that the ultimate alternative to peaceful settlement would be arbitrament of arms.

The surpassing accomplishments are progressively made, and I know that the soul of America will light the way to a gratifying victory.

When that glad day comes—I hope it will be soon—when the sincerity of our own aspirations and the sincerity of the world's convictions bring us to a united endeavor, we shall forget that there were necessary compromises which hindered but…

Something in your golden gateway has impelled me to speak to you of the foreign relations of our republic. Happily it is not a message of anxiety, but one of satisfaction and rejoicing.

If there are no property rights, there is little, if any, foundation for national rights, which we are ever being called upon to safeguard.

We would give as freely as we ask. Such assurance is in the interest of permanent friendly relations.

As President, speaking for the United States, I am more interested in adherence to such a tribunal in the best form attainable than I am concerned about the triumph of Presidential insistence.

We do not challenge the utility of the League of Nations to others; we wish it more power in every righteous exercise of its functions; but it is clearly not for us as presented in the Versailles covenant.

That this Administration, supported by the strength and generosity of the American people, has saved the lives of ten millions of men, women and children in Russia, at the very door of death from famine and pestilence, is the complete…

Our feeling toward the Mexican people is one of entire and very cordial friendliness, and we have deeply regretted the necessity for the continued suspension of diplomatic relations.